China expects to greenlight six to eight new nuclear power units a year within the foreseeable future, an official at the China Nuclear Energy Association (CNEA) said, according to a report in state media outlet Xinhua on Wednesday.
Beijing had set a target for 58GW of installed nuclear capacity by 2020, but as of September 2023 is just short of this with a combined installed capacity of 57GW, and 24 units under construction with a total installed capacity of 27.8GW, according to CNEA.
So every unit is a little over one GW? Sounds good, but their plans is to only have 18% nuclear by 2060, so it seems that won’t be their most important electricity source.
I had thought that China was expected to abandon fossil fuels by 2060, but 14% of the total energy will still be derived from fossil fuels. Maybe that is a more realistic outlook on things, though.
2060 is their net zero target. 10 years behind the West, but I’m incredibly confident that one of those is just tortured numbers with carbon offsets like buying trees that will never be cut down. I’ll let you guess which
So every unit is a little over one GW? Sounds good, but their plans is to only have 18% nuclear by 2060, so it seems that won’t be their most important electricity source.
Here’s the energy mix China’s planning on by 2060, nuclear is around 19% so looks like it’s roughly on target https://www.visualcapitalist.com/chinas-energy-transition-in-5-charts/
I had thought that China was expected to abandon fossil fuels by 2060, but 14% of the total energy will still be derived from fossil fuels. Maybe that is a more realistic outlook on things, though.
2060 is their net zero target. 10 years behind the West, but I’m incredibly confident that one of those is just tortured numbers with carbon offsets like buying trees that will never be cut down. I’ll let you guess which